GOOD YEAR, BAD YEAR? by Rob Lopresti It being the time for it, I have been looking back at 2009, trying to decide if I had a good year. Writing-wise, I mean. The problem is, there are so many ways to judge it. I have written before about the seasons in a writer’s life; not […]

Today’s hints for our Christmas Contest relate to Rob’s column last week. Rob writes: “The holiday message exists in the texts of our columns, but there is a clue about the message in the title of my column for last Wednesday, December 16. I didn’t put it there intentionally, but it is there.” Remember that […]

Our Christmas Contest continues—check it out here. A LETTER FROM SANTA CLAUS by Rob Lopresti Dearest Friend; It is my joy to write to you about a business opportunity that gives you a chance to make money and at the same time be of great service to the youngsters of the earth. I am the […]

THE MANY NAMES OF WESTLAKE by Rob Lopresti This is a bittersweet moment for me. I just finished Get Real, which was the last Donald Westlake book, unless there are some oddities lying around in the vault (lucky for us if there are). Dortmunder and the gang went out in style. At one point the […]

HELPLESSLY HOPING by Rob Lopresti Last week I received a disturbing letter from the Mystery Writers of America, and it wasn’t even about my dues. Recently, Harlequin Enterprises launched two new business ventures aimed at aspiring writers, the Harlequin Horizons self-publishing program and the eHarlequin Manuscript Critique Service (aka "Learn to Write") both of which […]

PRE-TURKEY SPECIAL by Rob Lopresti I’m thankful that some editors like my stuff. I’m thankful for word processing software that means I don’t have to rewrite a page by hand every time I find a typo. I’m thankful for the First Amendment. I’m thankful that Edgar Allen Poe didn’t drink or drug himself to death […]

LIFE IS SHORT. ART IS LONG. by Rob Lopresti Two weeks ago I wrote about a judge who died back in the 1920s and ended by saying that “Thanks to the wonders of the written word and the World Wide Web we can still read his thoughts and deeds eighty years later.” If I seemed […]